All these appointments are effective February 1, the same day that Neemuchwala takes over as CEO and current CEO TK Kurien takes over as executive VC.

BENGALURU: Days after naming former TCS veteran Abidali Neemuchwala as its new chief executive officer (CEO), India’s third largest software exporter Wipro has named company old-timer Bhanumurthy BM as its new chief operating officer and also assigned new roles to other veterans such as GK Prasanna as part of a newly-unveiled organizational structure, according to three people directly familiar with the developments.

Wipro has also created a brand-new business unit called Marketing, Innovations and Technology and appointed Prasanna as the President of the unit, according to an internal email sent out by Neemuchwala to the company’s 168,000-odd employees. Anand Padmanabhan and Shaji Farooq are the other top company executives who currently hold the rank of President.

A Wipro spokesperson confirmed the latest changes. “Bhanumurthy B M (Bhanu) has been appointed as President & Chief Operating Officer of Wipro Ltd.

In his role, Bhanu will provide leadership to all the Service Lines (Business Application Services, Global Infrastructure Services, Product Engineering Services, Analytics, Application Management Services and Business Process Services), Service Transformation and Excellence, Global Delivery Enablement, and Quality functions,” a Wipro spokeswoman said in an email to ET. All these appointments are effective February 1, the same day that Neemuchwala takes over as CEO and current CEO TK Kurien takes over as executive vice chairman.

According to the people mentioned above, Wipro's Digital business and Business Outcome Services will be overseen by Kurien as part of the latest reshuffle. A Wipro spokesperson clarified that these two units will be mentored by Kurien for now and then transitioned under Neemuchwala over the next few months, effectively giving him complete authority.

"As the Executive Vice Chairman, besides enabling Abid in his new role, TK Kurien will leverage his deep relationships with customers and chart out the future technology roadmap for the company. Wipro Digital and Business Outcome Services, which are of strategic importance, are in their early days and TK will continue to mentor these businesses for now. These two businesses will transition to Abid in a few months," a Wipro spokesperson said in an email. Bangalore-based Wipro said that the newly-created business unit will mainly focus on “non-linear growth engines, products and platform-based services.” “After an industry leading performance as the head of the GIS (Global Infrastructure Services) business, G K Prasanna (GKP) has been appointed as the President of a newly created unit - Marketing, Innovations and Technology (MIT),” Wipro said. The new unit will focus on nonlinear growth engines, products and platform-based services, integrated solutions, research, and new technologies, Wipro added.

The changes come days after Wipro’s billionaire chairman Azim Premji sent out an internal email to employees saying that both Kurien and Neemuchwala would announce a new organisational structure. Both Bhanumurthy and Prasanna will continue to report to Neemuchwala. Under the new structure, all service lines will report to Bhanumurthy, while all the heads of the verticals will report to Neemuchwala. All function heads will also continue to report to the new CEO.

The latest organisational reshuffle comes weeks after two other company veterans Sangita Singh and Ayan Mukerji resigned from the company after spending over two decades at Wipro. Over the coming quarters, Neemuchwala will have the unenviable task of reviving Wipro’s fortunes and orchestrating a turnaround, as part of a broader effort to catch up with other large-cap rivals such as TCS, Infosys and US-based Cognizant.